Payback

64

Rubens’ helicopter was about five minutes from the White House when Johnny Bib buzzed him on the secure line. One of the computer experts — Johnny Bib hated the term “hacker”—had broken into Chinese intercepts of a Russian satellite phone system and obtained several conversations that had taken place not far from where the warhead had been found. The transmissions used an encryption popular among some members of the Russian mafiya. The NSA had the “keys” to decrypt it and the conversations were being translated now. They were extremely brief and unenlightening: in one case, a ride was apparently solicited; in another, a question was asked about how much it would cost to buy a truck. The analysts were divided on whether these might not be code for something else. But the implication of the dated Russian encryption and the use of the phone network were much more important at the moment than anything in the conversations: it suggested that the CIA agent involved in Iron Heart was still alive.

“Or that someone found his satellite phone,” said Rubens.

“Well, yes,” said Johnny Bib. “That, too.”

Johnny’s voice dropped, and Rubens realized he hadn’t thought of the obvious possibility.

“You have an exact location?”

“Yes. It’s within a military reservation in an unpopulated area.”

“Inform Ms. Telach.” He glanced at his watch. “Tell her that I would like Tommy and Mr. Dean to check it out. Tell her to prepare a mission, but to wait for my word to launch it.”

Fifteen minutes later, Rubens entered the cabinet room at the White House to find Collins giving a full briefing on Iron Heart. She was flanked by her boss, CIA Director Louis Zackart, and Jorge Evans — the CIA officer who had supervised Iron Heart. Secretary of Defense Art Blanders, who’d never been a big fan of the CIA, looked furious. Secretary of State James Lincoln, nominally a Collins ally, had his arms crossed and was shaking his head. In fact, only President Marcke seemed nonplussed by the disclosure that the CIA might have lost track of one of the warheads in the operation.

Collins glanced at Rubens as he came in. He was surprised that the look seemed not only benign but almost one of relief, as if he were an ally she’d been waiting for.

“Our best information then, and now, is that there was no third warhead,” said Collins. “But it should have been mentioned in the report.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Blanders.

Collins nodded. Her strategy was rather transparent: since this had all happened before her time, she could easily distance herself from it while claiming to give full disclosure.

“A search of the wreckage was conducted,” she said. “A wide range of assets were used. Just as a precaution.”

“Was this all mentioned to the president at the time?” Blanders demanded.

“I don’t personally have that information,” said Collins. “It was a different administration.”

That response didn’t sit well with Blanders, whose opinion of the previous administration was as low as his opinion of the CIA. He began telling Collins how idiotic—“I’m putting it politely,” he said — it was to transport a real nuclear weapon to South America to begin with.

Collins could have chosen to tell Blanders that the operation had been approved at the highest levels of the government — it had been authorized by a presidential finding and in the due course of things would have been subject to several reviews. She might also have mentioned that elements of the military had been involved in the operation and that the targeted weapon was never far from a sizable strike force. She could even have said — and here Rubens would actually have agreed with her — that having the operation end up in South America was no worse, and possibly a whole lot better, than having it take place in the Middle East or some other country where the local governments might be less than cooperative if things went sour. But instead she answered mildly, “I don’t disagree.”

Rubens glanced at Evans. Clearly, he was going to end up taking the brunt of whatever fallout ensued, the designated patsy for decisions made several pay grades above him. He seemed rather stoic today; then again, the paramilitary types tended to be like that. They’d seen their share of blood in the field, and little fazed them, at least outwardly.

“What the report should or should not have included is an issue for a different time,” said the president. He turned to Rubens. “And I’m in office now, not my colorful predecessor. We need to know now what it is we’re dealing with. Billy, you have an update for us?”

“As we all know, the warhead that has been discovered in the Amazonian area is not real.” He pulled his chair out and sat. “Or rather to be precise, it does not contain what the experts refer to as a radioactive pit — a bomb kernel, if you win. There’s no nuclear material. But the fact that it’s very similar to the warhead that was involved in Iron Heart does raise some possibilities.”

“We’re not sure it was the same as the ones in Iron Heart,” said Collins. “The data that your people brought back is less than definitive.”

They could have brought the warhead back here and dumped it in your lap and you’d still find some way to criticize them, thought Rubens.

“Everything I’ve seen, not just the Deep Black pictures but the images on Peruvian television, leaves absolutely no doubt,” said Blanders. “More than a dozen analysts have looked at it at the Pentagon. And these Deep Black people — the agents who were there — are experts in Russian nuclear arms. They’ve dealt with this sort of thing before. They’re not going to mess this up.”

“One of the people is an expert,” said Rubens mildly, referring to Karr. “He disarmed the weapon in southern Siberia last year. Not the same type of warhead, though there are many similarities.”

“There are two possibilities,” continued Rubens. “One, the warhead that has been discovered was a dummy from the very start. The CIA asset — I believe you refer to him by the name Sholk or Silk; am I right, Mr. Evans?”

“Sholk,” he said with a stony glare.

“Perhaps he intended to use it somehow, or used it when he made the original deal. When you shot down his plane in Ecuador, it was still inside. The rebels recovered it, maybe then, more likely in the recent past.”

Rubens glanced at Evans, unsure whether he would argue that the CIA had not shot down the plane. He didn’t.

“What’s the other possibility?” asked Lincoln.

“The other possibility is that the warhead is real, or rather was, but that the bomb material was removed at some point after the crash. The guerrillas could have the material or they could have sold it. Or perhaps someone else sold them this bomb, either as a dummy or even as a legitimate weapon, since they might not know how to test it properly. We’ve found no financial transactions or communications backing that theory, but it remains viable.”

“Let me straighten Mr. Rubens out on a minor point,” said Collins. “Two points. One, the crash occurred in Peruvian territory. I realize that the report is imprecise, but it was just over the border in the contested area. And two, the CIA did not shoot down the aircraft.”

“Are you sure, Debra?” said Rubens.

She turned to Evans. He in turn glanced at the director, then began to speak. “There was a misunderstanding at the airstrip. The pilots refused an order to get out of their airplane. As they took off, gunshots were heard. A shoulder-launched missile was fired.”

“A misunderstanding?” said Rubens. “That’s hard to believe.”

“That’s what happened,” said Evans.

Rubens met his gaze and realized that Evans had decided he could tough this point out.

Blanders, who was having trouble controlling his temper, asked with the help of several expletives why that wasn’t mentioned in the report.

“It wasn’t relevant,” said Evans. “The plane crashed. That’s noted.”

“Not relevant that you shot it down?”

The two men stared at each other. Rubens looked over at Collins, who sat stone-faced, gazing dead ahead at the wall opposite her. Most of the people looking at her would think she’d been blindsided, but Rubens suspected — knew — she hadn’t. She would have read the report and, just as he did, realize how convenient the crash had been. Not only that, but she would have known Sholk’s entire background — she would have known that the CIA was responsible for setting him up in business.

“OK, enough of this crap,” the president said. “I’m not going to waste my day sitting here listening to a rehash of a fucked-up CIA operation that occurred under the previous administration. I want a complete investigation done of this mess and I want to see the report. Mr. Zackart, see to it.”

“Yes, sir,” said the CIA director.

“Let’s move on. But before we do, one question: What happened to this guy, Sholk? Was he killed in the crash?”

“He was incinerated in the crash,” said Collins.

“Oh?” said Rubens. “We’ve discovered that a Russian satellite phone has been used in the area where the warhead was found over the past several months. The encryption code is several years old, one the Russian mafia likes.”

“If he had survived the crash, I would’ve seen him,” Evans insisted. “I was there myself. He died in the crash or the fire that burned up the plane.”

Rubens asked Evans, “How long did it take for you to reach the wreckage?”

“Not long.”

“Hours?”

“In that country it can take a day to go two miles,” Evans explained. “It’s all jungle straight up and down. I don’t remember how long it took. Not all day. Less than that. A few hours, maybe.”

“Was the body in the wreckage?”

“The wreckage was ashes. The plane had fuel in it and burned fiercely. By the time we got there the fire was almost out. The bodies had been consumed.”

“No corpus delicti,” the president said. “Enough. We’ve got a hell of a mess right now that needs all our attention. We’ve got a fake bomb in Peru that the Peruvians think is real. They’re sitting on it. There may be a real bomb, and we need to find it if it’s there. Our entrée to Peru is to help them dispose of the one they have and search to ensure there aren’t any more. I spoke to the president of Peru on the telephone just before I came here. He promised full cooperation.”

They discussed the arrangements. A Delta Force team and a team from the State Department were en route. The entire Southern Command, headquartered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, had been placed on alert. An emergency response unit trained to deal with disasters was heading to Lima so that it could respond immediately in a catastrophe. Two platoons of Marines and some aircraft had been dispatched to provide additional security at the embassy. Reconnaissance assets, planes and satellites, had been dedicated to the search. And finally, the USS Ronald Reagan and her task group were on the way to the waters off Peru, just in case the folks in Peru didn’t feel like cooperating in the search. “Sometimes a little intimidation prevents serious problems,” the secretary of defense said.

“The Peruvians will cooperate — are cooperating,” the secretary of state said.

“I don’t want to talk contingencies,” the president said. “The people at the Pentagon can handle that.” He turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “I understand you want Jack Spielmorph to head the search force?”

“Yes, sir.” Spielmorph was a two-star general.

“Fine.”

Collins weighed in. “One thing that needs to be determined is whether or not the Peruvian army manufactured this fake warhead. The generals are very much suspects.”

“So is our mysterious Mr. Sholk,” someone interjected. “Why do a fake warhead? Why not a coup?”

“Maybe the new generation is more subtle,” Collins replied. “The army found the weapon and got the political credit.”

“And the election is this coming Sunday,” the president said sourly. He glanced at Rubens, who suspected the president was wishing he had told the Peruvian president about the rigged vote-counting computers.

“Thank you, gentlemen and ladies, for sharing breakfast with me.” The president rose and left the room.